We have an opportunity for a suitably qualified people professional to join our People and Culture team at Essex Wildlife Trust.

The Role

The Senior Business Partner - People is responsible for enhancing the Trust’s overall performance and development by cultivating an engaged, high-performing workforce comprising both staff and volunteers. This role supports Essex Wildlife Trust’s strategic objectives, ensuring the workforce is capable of meeting future demands while fostering an inclusive, value-driven culture.

As a suitably qualified and experienced HR professional, the post holder will be responsible on all elements of the employee and volunteer lifecycle and delivering on the People and Culture Strategy, driving initiatives that build a high-impact, high performing organisational culture. 

You will deliver the HR and Volunteering strategy and manage operational plans that include inclusive recruitment, selection and onboarding processes (including safer recruitment), oversight of budgets, quarterly KPI reporting, logo clothing, handing casework, performance management, internal line management development, policies, frameworks and HR systems management.

This role includes overall payroll responsibilities, ensuring timely and accurate monthly payroll processing for a workforce of 180. 

The Senior Business Partner will strengthen and continue to invigorate the Trust’s volunteer programme, working closely with Volunteer Managers and the Business Partner - Volunteering to attract, engage, recognise and retain our wonderful volunteers. This role includes managing the volunteer budget, leading on volunteer-related casework, developing and maintaining the volunteer management system (Team Kinetic), and ensuring inclusive recruitment practices. The Senior Business Partner will coach and support volunteer managers and coordinate recognition events and initiatives that celebrate volunteers’ contributions and support the Trust’s work and impact.

Within the broader People and Culture directorate, the Senior Business Partner will actively contribute to strategic initiatives in culture, wellbeing and learning and development. This includes partnering with the Head of People and Culture, as well as collaborating with the Senior Business Partner - Learning and Development and the Business Partner - Culture to drive key projects and initiatives. The Senior Business Partner will also provide support to other departments and serve as a key resource in implementing Trust-wide People strategies, participating in the monthly wildlife trust HR meetings across The Wildlife Trust federation to foster knowledge-sharing and best practices.

The position will line manage a HR Officer and Business Partner – Volunteering.

The People and Culture Directorate 

The People and Culture team is close-knit and collaborative, and encompasses HR, Volunteering, Culture and Learning & Development – with all the associated elements (payroll, recruitment, mandatory training, policies and procedures, professional development, people management – and much more!). 

We have recently implemented a new and dynamic HR system (People First), which will support the post holder in a number of their workstreams and deliverables. We work hard to ensure everyone at the Trust has a positive experience, with a strong culture, clear expectations, professional processes and procedures to support, and the required training and development to deliver their roles and grow in their career with us. The team is innovative, creative, and high performing and we all work flexibly.

We are an engaging team of individuals, curious, questioning, explorative; we love to introduce innovations and new ways of working, and seek solutions to improve the working experience – for ourselves in the People and Culture team and for others. We are communicators – we like to talk, to share, to engage and to embrace diversity of thinking.  

This role is a permanent position working 37.5 hours per week (Monday to Friday from 9:00am to 5:00pm).  The salary for this post is £37,791.33 and is based at our Head Office location at the beautiful Abbotts Hall in Great Wigborough. Essex Wildlife Trust offers flexible homeworking arrangements and further details of the hybrid-working arrangements will be shared at interview.

To make an application, please complete an online application form on our website by 9am on Monday 18 November 2024. Interviews will be held on Wednesday 27 November 2024 at Abbotts Hall.

Our values are Impactful, Collaborative, United and Proactive.

Essex Wildlife Trust is committed to an inclusive and diverse workplace where everyone is welcome. As a conservation charity, we know how important diversity is, both in our natural world and amongst the people we employ. We want everyone to feel valued and empowered to contribute to our vision of “A county rich in wildlife with people connected to nature”.

As a Disability Confident employer, we are committed to offering an interview to anyone with a disability that meets all the essential criteria for the post. Please let us know if you require any adjustments to make our recruitment process more accessible.